Weekend update II: It’s a wiener!

• If the thought of seeing champ Jordin Sparks, San Antonio’s own Haley Scarnato or Sanjaya’s Amazing Hair isn’t enough to get you to “American Idols Live!” tonight, maybe this will — the Wienermobile will be there!

Yes, Oscar-Mayer’s big weenie on wheels will be at the AT&T Center. But this isn’t just an opportunity to see the Eighth Wonder of the World. Nossir. It’s a chance to audition for the “Sing the Jingle, Be a Star” competition, which offers the best Oscar-Mayer jingle singer a prize of $5,000 and a chance to attend next season’s “American Idol” finale. So forget belting out old pop and soul tunes. Concentrate on “My baloney has a first name …”

• When the crawl started Saturday, I thought it was just another flash-flood watch/warning, the likes of which we’ve had almost daily since Memorial Day. Instead, it said something about the zoo being closed the rest of the day because a tiger had mauled some guy. My first impression was that the tiger had somehow gotten loose and mauled a zoo guest. Only later did I learn it was a zookeeper.

And in the Bad Timing Dept., in going through my e-mail this morning, I found a press release from the zoo (sent Friday afternoon) touting this week as National Zoo Keeper Week.

• Sorry to hear on KISS’ “Lisle and Hahn Morning Show” this morning that the San Antonio tradition of throwing stuff at the band isn’t limited to Saturday night at Oyster Bake. A caller reported that Queensryche’s Saturday Sunken Garden show was marred by a couple of flying plastic bottles. The caller wondered if that didn’t cause the band to cut its set short.

The most shocking thing he said, however, was that Sunken Garden was packed. I mean, I enjoyed “Silent Lucidity” and “Jet City Woman” as much as the next guy, but that was a long time ago. How long? Nirvana hadn’t happened yet.

• Speaking of concerts, Pollstar, the concert-watching music-industry organization, had listed a Black Crowes date Sept. 4 at the Verizon. Apparently that’s not going to happen. The San Antonio date (OK, the Selma date) has been taken off, and a Sept. 5 date has popped up at the Back Yard Amphitheatre west of Austin. In fact, tickets for that show go on sale Saturday at www.gettix.net.

• Here’s a surprise: “Captivity” was every bit as bad as it looked. According to Larry Ratliff’s one-jalapeno review, it was torture, all right. Torture to watch. (Read it here). I felt bad asking him to ruin a perfectly good Friday afternoon by going to see it, but that’s the life of a critic.

Except for a sorta decent twist at the end, Larry said the chief mystery was a question lots of critics have asked: What in the wide, wide world of sports is Roland Joffe doing directing this turkey? We not talking about a slasher or torture-porn hack; Joffe was nominated for Oscars for directing “The Killing Fields” and “The Mission” in the ’80s. Must have needed the gig really bad.